I recently read about the huge unemployment figures in Italy, standing now at 11.7%. Even as disturbing was the comment that Italians choose a job they hate and stay with it the rest of their lives. Maybe there’s something admirable about persistence in a bad job, but it surely doesn’t make for happiness. There are multiple ways outside of your job you can find satisfaction, but if you despise your work and can’t leave it then you’re really trapped.
That makes choosing what you going to do with your working life one of the most critical decisions you will ever make. In contrast to the Italians, Americans are quite mobile in their employment. Most entering the work force in the last twenty-five years have made several, if not many, career changes. Society encourages that so we can avoid, to some extent, spending 40 years in a position that is stultifying.
At the outset, careful consideration must be made in choosing a vocation. When I was in that position 50 years ago, I envied those friends who had a father’s business to inherit. In most cases that didn’t work out well for them and the stress of having to tell your father you didn’t want to continue in that business must have been painful. It was unnerving in college to hear fellow students who were certain of their career path and had been since they were in elementary school. I envied them, but then watched as very few went on with those early plans; they found something else that interested them more.
Assessing the potential rewards from an occupation is essential but that alone will be unlikely to give satisfaction if your passion lies elsewhere. Joseph Campbell, the late American philosopher, capsulized the road to happiness in a memorable phrase: “Follow your bliss.” It’s not difficult to make a list of things that are potentially blissful; the trick is making it pay.
In watching the Baby Boomers enter the workforce, I have the sense that many are comfortably situated in their employment, but it’s unusual to hear one say, “I love this so much I would do it for free!” The ones who can say that are following their bliss and making it profitable at the same time. They should count themselves among the fortunate few,
I recently interviewed John Hart, one of the authors who will speak at the Book and Author Dinner, April 12, which is a fund raiser sponsored by the Roanoke Academy of Medicine Alliance Foundation. He is obviously successful in his career as a writer, having been a New York Times bestseller four times. The thing that struck me in talking with him how many things he tried before he settled into a successful career track.
He comes from a long, distinguished line of physicians and entered college with that in mind. After a couple of years, he felt that was not for him and eventually went to law school, got an MBA, worked in accounting and banking, was a criminal defense attorney, worked as a helicopter mechanic in Alaska with an idea of becoming a pilot, refinished ocean-going sailboats—not necessarily in that order—but you get the picture: it took him a while to find his bliss. He wrote several unpublished novels before he finally was successful and now lives and writes in Charlottesville with his wife and two children.
As riveting as his writing is, of as much interest is his career track. Maybe in his talk at Book and Author he will take us down that road. That would be an interesting journey.
John Hart will be joined by the equally famous Hallie Ephron, and Deborah Dean with Ken Burger as Emcee. Go online at Roanoke Book and Author Dinner for ticket information. Who knows? You might find a path to bliss there!
Hayden Hollingsworth
